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Fourteenth Friday after Pentecost
- caelidomum
- Sep 18
- 4 min read
Fourteenth Friday after Pentecost. Ambition.
Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation.
We will meditate tomorrow upon a third vice which is the opposite of humility, which is ambition, and we shall see: 1st, how hateful this vice is; 2d, in how many ways we may render ourselves guilty of it. We will then make the resolution: 1st, to be content with the position in which Providence has placed us, without attempting to rise any higher; 2d, to resist the proposals and the urgent endeavors made to us in this sense, at any rate unless we have very clear proofs that what is proposed to us is in the order of God. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the words of St. James: Do not seek for high places, “knowing that you receive the greater judgment” (James iii. 1).
Meditation for the Morning.
Let us adore the Holy Ghost forbidding us in the Holy Scriptures to seek after domination and grandeur and the immoderate desire to rise above others; that is to say, the passion of ambition (Ecclus. vii. 4). Let us thank Him for such useful advice and ask of Him grace to profit by it.
How Hateful Ambition is.
It is a vice, the Holy Spirit says, which is hateful to God (Luke xvi. 15). The children of Zebedee asked that they might be raised above the other apostles, and placed in the first rank. You are blind; “you know not what you ask” (Matt. xx. 22; Mark x. 38), Jesus Christ answered them. The princes of the nations aspire to rule; My disciples, on the contrary, are great only in proportion as they abase themselves (Matt. xx. 26). At the wedding-feast some who were ambitious sought out the highest places. Do not you do so, He said to His disciples, “When thou art invited, go sit down in the lowest place; because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke xiv. 10, n). And Jesus Christ confirmed this doctrine by His example. His whole life preaches nothing else but humility, a hidden life, flight from greatness. When the people desired to make Him king, He took flight as though He were threatened by a great misfortune (John vi. 15). Until He was thirty years of age He lived ignored in a poor dwelling; during His mission He lived a life of poverty, devoid of honor; in His passion He was satiated with opprobrium. If He accepts a crown, it is a crown of thorns; if He receives a sceptre, it is a sceptre of ignominy. How could those present themselves at His tribunal whose sentiments and conduct are in direct contradiction to such an example ? Lastly, what faith teaches us, even reason also tells us. Ambition only renders man unhappy. Amongst its slaves whom do we see? Many unfortunate persons who hope; many dupes who hope no longer; very few who enjoy, after having, in order to arrive at the position they occupy, devoured a thousand deceptions without daring to complain, a thousand estrangements and vexations which nevertheless it was necessary they should seem eagerly to embrace, a thousand caprices and repulses the odiousness of which they were obliged to conceal; and now that they have attained the object of their desires, new annoyances and fresh deceptions await them. Something is always wanting to them. The homage of Mardochai, one single man in the whole empire, was wanting to the proud Aman, and he was unhappy. The vineyard of Naboth was wanting to Achab, king of Israel, and he was inconsolable; he knew no rest until he had made Naboth perish. And again, when they had obtained what they wanted, they did not cease to be unhappy: “I have been everything that it is possible to be” said a Roman emperor, “and I see that it is all of no use to make a man happy.”
In how many Ways we Render ourselves Guilty of Ambition.
We render ourselves guilty of ambition: 1st, by passionately desiring another position than the one we occupy, by aspiring to honors which are not our due, or by insisting too vigorously upon such as are due to us; 2d, by taking ambition as our counsellor in our judgment as regards our appreciation of others, to the extent of loving or hating them, favoring or opposing them, according as they show themselves to be for or against us; 3d, by looking upon those as happy who attain success, and never pausing in our pretensions, excepting in presence of our powerlessness to obtain our desires; 4th, by looking upon no position whatever as being above our merits, and seizing all opportunities that present themselves of procuring distinctions and advancement; 5th, by proposing to ourselves as the principal motive of the majority of our actions a vain honor which flatters our pride; 6th, by aspiring, in the spiritual order, to extraordinary and special graces, without being contented with the measure of light and of grace which it has pleased God to give us.
Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.
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